Re: Emacs.app (Cocoa/GNUstep port) release and feature list

[David Reitter <david.reitter@gmail.com>]

Adrian,

thanks for working on the port - one can tell that there has been a  
lot of progress.

A couple of comments.

In general: do you support the established Mac specific customization  
variables? In particular:

> - Keyboard handling: Support platform "Command" key as "Super".

Is this a default, and can it be changed using `mac-command-modifier'?
While your default is good (similar to what we have in Aquamacs, after  
all), I know that a lot of users like to configure Command to be Meta,  
especially when using keyboard layouts that require the use of the  
Option key to type things like curly brackets, the backlash or @ sign.

> - Customization: Preferences panel for major GUI settings.
>
>  This feature has no equivalent on other systems, but need not be
> used and does not interfere with standard means of customization.
> Backed by lisp-accessible variables and persisted via the X resources
> equivalent.

There is no way to customize these dialogs via Lisp, i.e. add new  
options?
While I find the UI approach very good, I think that a lack of  
interaction with the Lisp side of things would be rather un-Emacs-like.

Secondly, why introduce yet another system to store (rather than just  
load) Emacs-specific configuration variables?
There  is `custom-file', and users can edit their .emacs.

What do you do when settings conflict?

A couple of other questions w.r.t. known problems with the Carbon port:

- does your port run from anywhere in the system like any good  
application? The current Carbon port (including 22.1) crashes when  
started from directories with non-7-bit ASCII path names, such as / 
Applications/Développement/

- does your port play nice with multi-screen setups, especially when  
screens are of different size? The Carbon port doesn't.

- does your port take care to not open frames underneath the Dock (or  
otherwise) or enlarge them too much when changing font sizes?  
(Aquamacs / Carbon has trouble with this at the moment)

Best
- David

PS.: I can't run rc3 on my 10.5.1. machine. It quits immediately. If  
you need more info, let me know.